The Galway International Arts Festival’s Autumn Edition programme will come to an end this Saturday, after running for almost two months in Galway City.
The once-off programme of events had both live arts and an enhanced digital component this yea including the amazing Mirror Pavilion.
What’s on until Saturday?
Mirror Pavilion
The centrepiece of the programme, Mirror Pavilion by John Gerrard, situated on the Claddagh Quay, has fascinated locals and visitors alike.
Commissioned by GIAF for Galway 2020, Mirror Pavilion is a beautiful and striking mirrored structure featuring a virtual world on the LED wall.
The characters and landscapes on the LED wall may look like video or film but they are part of a simulation created using cutting edge digital technology in response to the escalating climate crisis.
Festival Gallery exhibitions
The Festival Gallery on William Street hosts two spectacular exhibitions: Night Cargo, by Irish artist Hughie O’Donoghue, and Three Women by internationally acclaimed video artist Bill Viola.
Entry is free with a pre-booked ticket (giaf.ie). It is open until this Saturday from 12pm-6pm with late opening until 8pm on Friday. The Festival Merchandise Shop is also located in the Festival Gallery.
Medicine
On Saturday audiences can enjoy a ‘one-night-only’ peek at a new Enda Walsh play, Medicine, at a work-in-progress stage.
Medicine will see Domhnall Gleeson return to the stage, alongside Clare Barrett, Aoife Duffin and jazz percussionist Sean Carpio. Produced by Landmark Productions and Galway International Arts Festival.
BEETHOVEN 250
Celebrating Beethoven’s 250th birthday, Galway Music Residency and Contempo Quartet are this week presenting Beethoven 250; a series of live performances of some of Beethoven’s most celebrated works for string quartet in St. Nicholas’ Collegiate church until Friday 25 September.
Experience GIAF online at home, anytime
Festival organisers were acutely aware that some may not be in a position to experience events in person and with that in mind you can enjoy an enhanced digital programme at home in your own time.
This includes all First Thought Talks, which featured a wide range of speakers discussing the big issues and challenges of 2020 including Samantha Power, Professor Luke O’Neill, Marion McKeone, Colm Tóibín, Eamon Dunphy, Fintan O’Toole and many more.
Watch on the Festival’s YouTube channel, on GIAF.ie and listen on the Festival’s new Podcast – First Thought.
Also on the First Thought podcast, you can listen to special guests Julie Feeney, David Brophy and Liz Nugent discuss their favourite music and memories with Tiernan Henry in a new series of Vinyl Hours conversations. Listen on Spotify, iTunes or wherever you get your podcasts.
There’s also an online photographic exhbition from artist Sarah Hickson – Placing Home: Hidden Stories – which portrays the experience of people making long, perilous journeys to find refuge.
This new exhibition was planned as a collaboration with people in Galway who had lived experience of Direct Provision (on GIAF.ie).
Online interviews with playwright and director Enda Walsh, artist Hughie O’Donoghue and a series of Mirror Pavilion videos, including an ‘in conversation with artist John Gerrard’, are also available to watch on GIAF.ie.
Commemorative Artwork by Jennifer Cunningham
To mark this most unusual of years, Galway International Arts Festival commissioned award-winning visual artist Jennifer Cunningham to create a commemorative artwork for Galway International Arts Festival’s once-off Autumn Edition programme.
Jennifer Cunningham’s hopeful piece is both a celebration of the recent past and a look to a more optimistic future and features the iconic Heineken Big Top, which we all missed in Galway this summer.
